«Che nel cielo d’Arcadia spunti il mio sol». Giovanni Bononcini e L’Amor eroico frà pastori (1696)

This essay examines the sources relevant to L’Amor eroico frà pastori, the ‘favola’ on a text by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (1667–1740). First performed during Carnival in 1696 in the small puppet theatre of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the work awaits careful study. The wooden figures which ‘acted’ and ‘danced, the ingenious devices and scene changes of L’Amor eroico frà pastori, inspired various poetic compositions and esthetic reflections. The Cardinal commissioned the music of the three acts from the composers he considered to be the best on the Roman scene: Carlo Francesco Cesarini, Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier, and Giovanni Bononcini. By 1692 at the latest, Ottoboni had acquired copies of many pieces by the Modenese composer, who also set to music various cantatas of the Cardinal’s father, Prince Antonio Ottoboni.
In the absence of printed librettos and of the complete score of L’Amor eroico frà pastori, I examine the following sources: (1) the manuscript libretto of 1696, recently brought to the attention of musicologists but still unpublished, which contains scenic movements, machines, interpreters, and dances; (2) the unknown manuscript libretto of 1711; and (3) the collection of ‘arias with instruments’ in the 1705 version, given to Palazzo Venezia with the title La pastorella with additions by Alessandro Scarlatti.
I set the surviving music in the context of the textual sources, and offer attributions of the arias to the respective composers where these are uncertain. I place my identification of the variants in the different witnesses in relation to the circumstances of the different sets. The pieces by Bononcini receive particular attention, and are examined in comparison with his output during his stay in Rome afterwards, and with its respective nobiliary commissioners.